I wish this convertor was around a couple of years ago when I desperately needed it, but I’m sure others will be needing it just as badly now. Because Inventor and the rest of the parametric modeling programs out there are very weak in the free-form surfacing area, surface work is often done in another program that was made for that type of work. In Shipbuilding where I worked, the hull and superstructure surfaces were created in Rhinoceros (Rhino) or Rhino Marine. In the Auto and Aerospace industries, Alias was the tool of choice (but it was far too expensive for all but the biggest companies).
How times have changed. Now Autodesk owns Alias, and the price has dropped dramatically to a point where it is affordable by all but the smallest company –and it is truly round-trip with Inventor. In my opinion, this is about as good as it gets. But…. if you are still stuck in the Inventor/Rhino loop, this convertor will go a long way towards interoperability with your conceptual team. No more having to bug the guy with Rhino to convert a file for you, or, as happened to me, waiting for Rhino dude to come back from vacation!
The plug-in imports Rhino solids, surfaces, wires, and points with no need for file conversion, and if history repeats itself, it will simply become part of the next version of Inventor…
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Content Center is Inventor’s built-in library of mostly smaller, generic parts based on international standards. It contains 3D models of nuts, bolts, springs, pipe, valves, and other items. If you dont require material properties or colors, they can be used as-is in some instances such as the self tapping screw example below…
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